The 2012-2013 season has no special
significance for Kurt Weill, the German-American composer of “September
Song,” “Speak Low” and “Mack the Knife.” But it’s a landmark year for
the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Last month, the Kurt Weill Foundation
(KWF) announced a major grant sponsoring CCM’s musical theater and opera
season, the first such award in the foundation’s history.

And as CCM prepares to stage Weill’s “American opera” Street Scene, Robin Guarino, head of CCM’s opera department, still shakes her head in disbelief.

It was a coincidence that CCM planned to produce both Street Scene and Threepenny Opera
in the same season. Production rights must be cleared through the KWF
and when Guarino was on the phone with Carolyn Weber, KWF’S Director of
Music, she said “I want to encourage you to apply for two grants for
these shows and one of them is due in two weeks.”

Another fortunate coincidence is the
number of Weill authorities on the CCM faculty, notably musicologist
bruce mcclung, who has written a book and major articles on Weill and
his musicals.

“I mentioned to Kim Kowalke, president of
the KWF, that we were doing both productions,” mcclung says, “and he
suggested we make it into a festival spread out over the year.”

The festival began last month with two
sold-out cabaret evenings featuring songs reflecting the relationship
between Weill and his wife and muse, Lotte Lenya. In addition to Street Scene and Threepenny Opera, CCM
will present master classes, collaborative concerts and a lecture
series that includes Kowalke and musicologist Howard Pollack.

Kurt Weill (1900-1950) was a prolific
composer best known for his theatrical works. Born in Germany, Weill
fled the Nazi-run country in 1933 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1935. He
embraced America enthusiastically, became a citizen and never looked
back.

Weill also had an ear for language. He refused to speak German and learned English and American idioms with uncanny facility.

“When he escaped to Paris in 1933, he wrote French chansons
like ‘Youkali’ and you think it’s by a French composer,” mcclung
comments.

After a string of successes in theater,
Weill was eager to create what he later described as a new “American
opera-form” that would “integrate drama and music, spoken word, song and
movement.” He told the New York Sun in 1940 that he wanted to
craft something that would “remain a part of American theater. More than
anything else, I want to have a part in that development.”

Elmer Rice’s 1930 play Street Scene was
the ideal vehicle, a sprawling, ultimately tragic story set in a
crowded urban neighborhood populated by immigrant families. Weill
recruited African-American poet Langston Hughes as lyricist. After major
revisions, Street Scene opened on Broadway in 1947, winning the first Tony Award for original score.

“I couldn’t believe that it had never
been done at CCM,” Guarino says, “so when we looked for a work to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Conservatory joining UC, we kept
coming back to it.”

One reason may be the sheer logistics involved.

“The cast is huge — 70 performers, including 35 named roles, plus a chorus and a large group of children,” mcclung says.

Director Steven Goldstein adds that each
cast member is vital, saying, “There are speaking roles that are
supporting parts for sure, but they are so integral to the story.”

Most of the leading roles are sung by opera students, but the cast includes students studying musical theater, drama and dance.

“It’s great to see them react together,” says Goldstein, noting how much students appreciate each other’s talents.

Weill and Hughes decided not to make Street Scene
through-sung, with no spoken dialogue (like much opera), because it
would not have sounded American. Much of the dialogue is spoken over
musical cues, which serves to strengthen the spoken words, says
Goldstein.

“Like a great play, there’s strong unity
of action,” he says. “Everything takes place on the sidewalk in front of
the tenement building. Over two hot summer days, we see a neighborhood
and the conflicts real people face.”

There’s the abusive Frank Maurrant, who
longs for the higher moral standards and values of the past, his
long-suffering wife Anna and their daughter Rose and families of
Italians, African Americans, Swedes and Eastern European Jews. Young Sam
Kaplan is in love with Rose, while Anna has an affair with the milkman.
Characters seen and unseen have their own stories underscoring the
turbulent, fractious environment they inhabit.

“I’m blown away by the beauty of the
music,” says Goldstein, who has performed the role of Sam. “We want to
take the audience on an emotional journey. Sam is so committed to saving
the situation and just can’t. Rose realizes that she can’t go along
with Sam’s dream because there are too many things in the way. That’s
still very valid today.”

Tensions in American society were simmering when Street Scene opened in 1947.

“It was the year Jackie Robinson joined
the Brooklyn Dodgers and the first House Un-American Activities
hearings,” Goldstein notes. “What Frank Maurrant says are the same
arguments we hear today.”

Kurt Weill was a pioneer of creating a more theatrical form of opera and his work remains “timely and relevant,” mcclung says.

That timelessness, adds Robin Guarino, is all about truth.

“There’s something about Weill’s music that forces singers to break open their hearts,” she says. “You can’t fake it.”